Guillaume Delisle was a French cartographer who made accurate maps of Europe and the newly explored Americas.
Background
Guillaume Delisle was born on February 28, 1675, in Paris, France. He was the son of Claude Delisle, historian and geographer, and Marie Malaine. His mother died after childbirth and his father married again, to Charlotte Millet de la Croyère. Delisle and his second wife had as many as 12 children, but many of them died at a young age.
Although the senior Delisle had studied law, he also taught history and geography. He had an excellent reputation in Paris’ intellectual circles and served as a tutor to lords. Among them was the duke Philippe d’Orléans, who later became regent for the crown of France, and collaborated with Nicolas Sanson, a well-known cartographer. Guillaume and two of his half-brothers, Joseph Nicolas and Louis, ended up pursuing similar careers in science.
Education
Interested in geography and mapmaking from his early childhood, Delisle was taught both by his father and by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, the director of the Paris observatory.
Career
Delisle published his first important work, a set of maps of the continents, a mappemonde, and a globe, in 1700; these immediately established his fame. He ran his own mapmaking estab-lishment in Paris until his death. In 1718 Delisle was given the title premier géographe du roi, a distinction no doubt connected with the fact that he tutored the young king, Louis XV, in geography.
The simple elegance of his work alone would distinguish it from the florid, baroque style affected by his contemporaries and predecessors; but it is the content of his maps that is of importance. Delisle studied under Cassini; and he lived in the era of the great surveys, when a number of places on all continents had their locations accurately determined for the first time, using Cassini’s method of observation of the moons of Jupiter. Delisle applied the astronomers’ findings to his maps; he omitted guesswork, fantasy, and unnecessary or ornamental detail; he admitted lack of knowledge of unexplored territories; and he insisted on critical use of source materials and dependence on scientifically accurate measurements.
Delisle was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1702.
French Academy of Sciences
,
France
1702
Connections
After Delisle's death in 1726, his widow tried to preserve the workshop and protect the family. She appealed to the king with the help of the abbot Bignon, the king's librarian and president of the academies. By that time, Guillaume's brothers Joseph-Nicolas and Louis had already left France to serve Peter the Great in Russia. It is known that he had a daughter.